Beishuiguan Ruins

Beishuiguan Ruins

The Beishuiguan Ruins are a protected cultural heritage site of Shanghai Municipality.

The Beishuiguan Ruins are located northeast of Taoliyuan Middle School on North Street in Jiading Town, Jiading District, dating back to the Ming Dynasty.

Located inside the moat of the ancient Jiading Town and at the northern end of the Hengli River, they were initially built during the Jiajing era of the Ming Dynasty as one of the four water gates of the ancient Jiading Town. The site was discovered in July 2009 during the reconstruction project of the pumping station and sluice gate in the old town area of Jiading. Historically, Beishuiguan served not only as a hydraulic facility but also had military defensive functions. Song Jian, head of the Archaeology Department at the Shanghai Municipal Administration of Cultural Heritage, stated: “The discovery of this site provides a concrete example for understanding the developmental history of Jiading as a local town, as well as the formation process of a historic and cultural city. Moreover, it offers important physical material for clarifying the development, changes, or comparisons in engineering technology.”

Protected area: 10 meters beyond the ruins themselves.

Construction control zone: East – same as the protected area; West and South – 20 meters beyond the protected area; North – Outer City Moat.

Jiading Town Subdistrict: Before the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods, an ancient coastline formed at the mouth of the Yangtze River, and human activity was already present along the Lianqi River (now the area around West Gate Old Street). By the Liang Dynasty’s Tianjian era (502–519), a settlement had been established. During the Tang Dynasty, the ancient town of Jiading was named after the Lianqi River and called Lianqi Market. On the ninth day of the twelfth lunar month in the tenth year of the Jiading era of the Southern Song Dynasty (January 7, 1218), the county seat was established and named Jiading after the reign title, a name that has been retained to this day. In September 2000, Jiading Town was restructured from a town into a subdistrict.

Jiading Town was listed by the Shanghai Municipal People's Government in 1991 as one of Shanghai’s four major historic and cultural towns, long renowned for its rich cultural heritage... More details about Jiading Town Subdistrict ++